Book Drive and Readings

Celebrating the Little Free Library in Ned Wolf Park, bring your children to this 11th Annual Kids' Literacy Festival event.   The event kicks off at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore starting at 10 am.  At 11 am, join a parade with storybook characters Frog & Toad over to Ned Wolf Park.  If you have books, especially children's books, to donate to keep our Little Free Library stocked, please bring them.  For more information, visit  www.bigbluemarblebooks.com

Pots, Plants 4 Sale

We are excited to offer at the upcoming May 6th Plant Sale a collection of outdoor pots donated by Campania International, inc.

These pots will be offered for sale at super bargain prices along with hundreds of perennial plants for sun and shade, shrubs, garden tools, tomato seedlings, etc.  And all proceeds go to maintain and improve this public park.

The sale will be held on Saturday, May 6th

from 10 am to 1 pm. 

Fair warning: On the morning of the sale, we close the park to set up and allow no browsing until 10 am sharp.  By then, we usually have crowds waiting for the rarest plants or best bargains.

Come join us for a fun sale!

Heavy rain date is Sunday, May 7th, same hours

Squirrel Corn & Bloodroot

Two ephemeral native wildflowers are thriving under the cherry trees near the McCallum Street entrance walk into the park. No one is sure where they came from, since they were not intentionally planted. We suspect they may have been dormant tag-alongs with other plants donated to the park.

The upper photo shows a spreading patch of Dicentra canadensis. Its deep green, finely cut foliage, accented by clean white flowers, grows from yellow tubers that give it its quirky common name, Squirrel Corn. It is spreading more quickly each year into an area planted by chartreuse Japanese Forest Grass which will lengthen to fully conceal it as it goes dormant by summer.

The lower photo shows the unusual leaves of Sanguineria canadensis, which has delicate white flowers that last only a few days in early April. Curiously, it too gets its common name, Bloodroot, from its underground structure, a rhizome that bleeds red (toxic) juice.

2017 Plant Sale

The Friends of Ned Wolf Park

will host our annual fund-raising

PLANT SALE

Saturday, May 6th

10am to 1pm

If anyone would like to donate plants

please bring them to the park on Friday evening or as early on Saturday morning as you can 

so plants can be priced and organized

before the 10 am start

MYSTERY TULIPS!?!

For the second year in a row,

Spring has come with a new patch of tulips that has sprouted unbeknownst to the Friends of Ned Wolf Park Design Group that has planted the gardens since 2007.

This patch appeared in the island bed in an area where low-growing Sedum and Pennisetum are planted.

Last year, a group of tulips appeared near McCallum Street, planted amongst the June-blooming Astilbe.

Our gardeners are happy to include anyone interested in contributing to the plantings, but we do think it best to work together.

Will the real Tulip Fairy please stand up and introduce yourself to the team?

Celebrating 2016

This year was a challenging one for many of us in Mt. Airy, including garden-makers dealing with a season that denied us our typical annual rainfall.  But the gardens at Ned Wolf Park were designed with an eye toward sustainability without intensive pampering. And they have matured so that even a bit of neglect does not take away the Park's aura as a special oasis of beauty and calm in our verdant neighborhood.

We can celebrate in 2016 the completion of a four year effort and capital campaign to replace creosoted timber with natural stone, much of it reclaimed.  

Of course, the work was done incrementally and in such a subtle way that it feels NOT like a transformation.  Instead, the park feels as if it has always been thus - an emblem of our community pride. 

Late bloomers

November is here and there are still some special sights to see in the gardens if you take your time and look past the waning deciduous foliage. 

In the shade, you'll see two purple-speckled varieties of Tricyrtis, aka Toad Lilies. Look behind the benches nearest McCallum Street and near the big tree trunk at the central terrace.

In the sun, you'll find:

Peach Drift shrub roses

airy pink seedheads of Muhlenbergia capillaris, aka Pink Muhly Grass

subtle blue flowers on a chartreuse-leafed Caryopteris shrub 

Chrysanthemum 'Rhumba'